Someone tagged the Mill Ruins with graffiti located at Mill Ruins Park near the Stone Arch Bridge Monday May 5, 2014 in Minneapolis, MN.

Jerry Holt, Star Tribune

Downtown Minneapolis' Mill Ruins Park fresh with graffiti

May 5, 2014 - 11:35 PM

The graffiti sprayed on the picturesque ruins at Mill Ruins Park in downtown Minneapolis appears as even more of an affront in light of the sign nearby.

It reads: “Please help preserve your community’s history.”

“It’s more than unfortunate,” Robin Smothers, social media and marketing consultant with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, said of the large tags defacing part of the popular landmark.

Smothers said the Park Board was alerted Monday afternoon about the vandalism on the west bank of the Mississippi River, directly below the Stone Arch Bridge. It isn’t known whether it was created overnight or sometime earlier during the weekend, she said.

Smothers said park maintenance workers are likely to remove the graffiti soon. Although she did not have statistics on how much the city spends removing graffiti, she said the Park Board is busiest doing so in the spring.

Graffiti “happens everywhere,” she said. “We do our best to clean it up.”